The offices also process passport applications, and we went this week for my son’s passport renewal. The photo of Marco Rubio on the wall did not manage to overshadow the professionalism and care that we experienced there. It is helpful for me, as we live through national leadership that has no moral center, to come into contact with public servants who are funny, and thoughtful, and kind.

Earlier this year, I read Who is Government which is a book of essays about eight federal employees and how their jobs make our lives better here in America. It was inspiring to hear about jobs I had never heard of and the good work they do. It was upsetting, in this age of DOGE, to think about how these folks are disrespected by people who don’t know anything about their areas of expertise. It was also a reminder of the kind of community I believe in most days: the teachers who show up to be with our children and the folks who clear teacher wishlists and the mom who adds extra food to her grocery cart to donate to the food pantry. The friend who works every day to help those without safe housing, and the dad who donates blood regularly. Those who work in needle exchange and carry Narcan. The employee at the DMV who helps someone through a form. The neighbor who mows a yard without asking when someone needs it. The enthusiasm and generosity of park rangers. Little free libraries and pantries and seed exchanges.

The relentless dehumanization coming out of this administration’s top officials is enough to make me want to hide on my couch. But I feel better when I don’t.

So today I give thanks for the lady at the Register of Deeds office, who laughed when she saw that I brought twice the amount of paperwork we needed, “just to be sure,” but who also didn’t make me feel like she was laughing at me. She waved kindly when we left. May her pillow be cool, may her phone never die, may she find a really good parking spot.

It is easy to believe that moving faithfully through the world does not make that much of a difference, and I am grateful to her for showing me otherwise.

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I read ten books in July! It was a good reading month overall. No five star books, but nothing that I hated, either.

Kin by Tayari Jones - I thought this was fantastic and I wished I’d had a book club to discuss it with because I would love to know what you think happened after the book ended!

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw - I’m a big fan of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and this is her new one coming out next month. It was, I think, more dramatic and salacious (if that is even possible) but I thought it had a little less meat. I enjoyed it, though!

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger - This one I had trouble putting down but I hated the narrator. In the book, the narrator’s son was “driving” a self-driving car on the family vacation when an accident occurred, causing the death of two people. It’s about AI and self-driving cars and responsibility (culpability). It would also be an interesting book club discussion, even if people (like me) didn’t love it. Lots to think about and talk about.

The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez - Not my favorite of hers. It was fine.

Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris - My book club enjoyed Long After We Are Gone and I thought this one might also be a possibility for us to read. But the characters didn’t feel like real people - they felt like characters who were communicating therapy messages. I wish I’d liked this more than I did. The story (an escaped convict reinventing herself) had a lot of potential but it didn’t gel for me.

Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein - I was missing the World Cup by this point so it was fun to read this novel about a soccer phenom and her older sister as the younger one strives to make the USWNT. I had some issues with some of the plot points but overall I enjoyed it.

A Beautiful Year by Diana Butler Bass - This is probably meant to be read devotionally over a year but I enjoyed reading about the rhythm of the church calendar here in ordinary time.

Little One by Olivia Muenter - I did not read Yesteryear. I did go to a book club discussion of it so I felt like my curiosity was satisfied and I enjoyed hearing people talk about it. At that discussion, my friend recommended Little One as a similar read that she thought executed some of the themes better. This one is about someone who grew up in a cult run by her father and how she’s tried to move on but gets contacted by a reporter who wants to do an article on her family, pulling her back into the drama. I definitely enjoyed it and the ending really surprised me! This would also be a great book discussion, and in fact I went and listened to the author’s podcast/spoiler discussion about it and that made me want to talk about it more!

Tough Guy and Common Goal - We watched Heated Rivalry so even though I thought I was done with the books I decided I wanted to read more of the books. I liked Tough Guy better than Common Goal. In Common Goal, I was like, hey, what if you had some conversations, which is never my favorite trope. I enjoyed all the characters, though.

I will not be picking any of these for church book club, but there are some good discussion books in here that might work in other spaces.

What have you read in the past month that you would like to talk about?

I didn’t rate a lot of these, some of them because I was trying to be polite and not rate them very low, and some because I just didn’t feel strongly enough about them to give them a score.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans - I’m not the target audience for this book, but I can see why people liked it.

The Art Spy by Michelle Young - This was non-fiction about a woman named Rose Valland who worked at the Louvre during World War II. I loved it! I have not stopped thinking about it. I have read a lot of books about World War II but had never thought about how museums had to protect the artwork. Of course people’s lives are more important than art, but at the same time, the war was being fought about culture, which is worth preserving. Rose was a hero both for her bravery during the war as she helped resist the Nazis and her work afterwards to reunite art with its Jewish owners. I highly recommend this one if the topic interests you.

All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley - I loved this one too! This is a memoir from a man who worked as a guard at the Met and I found his reflections on the art to be deeply moving. It reminded me of spiritual practices - the ways he would revisit the art and learn from it, the amount of time that he spent looking at the art, the ways that he would see new things in other people’s responses. This is one of my favorite books I have read so far this year.

The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin - I finally picked a book for church book club! Thank goodness. This is a nice read about a woman beekeeper and some young men she takes in, and how they all help one another (and fight against the dangers of pesticides). We will discuss it in September.

Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez - I have enjoyed all of this author’s books but this one probably spoke to me the least.

For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus by Varun Gauri - I read this to consider it for church book club and it was a no for me. The story of an arranged marriage was interesting but I wasn’t invested.

Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera - I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs, so I didn’t object to the premise of a woman shooting her drunk abusive husband and feeding him to the gators, but I really really did not like the ending of this book. I read it to see if we’d do it for church book club and the answer is no because I hated the ending. If you have read it, let me know if we can talk about the ending.

Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie - I loved These Heathens so I thought I’d check this one out, it was about a woman meeting a child born from an egg they donated many years before. It was cute but not life-shattering.

Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler - I have been thinking a lot about joy this summer, and I thought I’d give Kate Bowler another try. It didn’t totally hit for me - it felt disjointed and disconnected from her life in a way that I couldn’t put my finger on - but I enjoyed some of her reflections.

Game Changer and Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid - I had to take a turn reading the gay hockey books! I actually liked Game Changer better than Heated Rivalry because I like meet cutes more than enemies to lovers. When the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup I was like, why are none of them kissing, but thankfully there was kissing at the Stanley Cup in these books.

Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - There was a real disconnect between the critical reviews of this book and my experience reading it. I found it disjointed and difficult to follow. I cared about the characters but not the way it was written.

Full of Myself by Austin Channing Brown - I got this one for Christmas and finally had time to read it. I enjoyed her reflections on being full of herself - present in her body, present in the world, present in her work, present in her family.

Currently reading: Kin by Tayari Jones. Enjoying it a lot so far! What are you reading and what did you read in June?

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I won’t say that kids are always listening, but mine did, of course, always listen at the most inopportune times (“Did he just say blueberry beer, Mama?”) and I believe that kids absorb feelings about worship just from being in the space that are as important as the messages of the songs and the prayers. We want them to think of it as a friendly space where they can bring their full selves, and that might include goldfish crackers, coloring, and hot chocolate.

I like some quiet time during worship, and I also know that the noise of children during a worship service is the sound of a church that is living out its welcome to all, and building a church beyond my lifespan. These are not uncomplicated conversations, and they stretch beyond noise to the welcome of all people, which can and does at times also infringe upon expectations and comfort. Welcome in worship spaces can be a delicate dance.

This year, my coworker who serves as the Minister of Music and I are participating in a cohort of churches that focuses on including children in worship spaces. There are a variety of different churches, so this means a variety of things in these different spaces. It ranges from having space in the room where children can quietly drive trucks on the floor to children leading worship and giving a sermon.

In our space, we have chosen to think of this cohort as an opportunity for the things that we do in the children’s ministry to shape some of our worship. This both helps children feel welcome in the space and allows everyone to see the children as leaders in our worship. We have tried some varieties of prayer like body prayers and prayer chains that originated in the children’s ministry. I am continually on the lookout for ways to bring our activities to the broader community.

During Lent, we spent a lot of time talking about prayer in the children’s ministry. This is a link to the email I sent to our families about the different prayer practices we tried out over the weeks of Lent. Our emphasis was that we can talk to God about anything. Teaching kids that prayer should incorporate honesty and can incorporate movement and our senses helps kids know that they can bring their full selves to God.

I teach the PreK/K class, and as we talked about prayer, I began to notice a common theme - many of them were expressing normal fears about being afraid of the dark, afraid of bad dreams, and afraid of monsters under their beds. We talked about these fears and encouraged them that this was a great thing to talk to God about. We reminded them that God gave them family members to help when they are scared as well as our stuffies and blankets and pets. I did wonder if there was more that we could do.

When the staff decided to make our summer worship series related to courage and fear, I thought that this was an opportunity to bring something tangible into our worship space that originated from the children’s ministry, and I asked if we could do a blessing of our comfort items. It would be great, I thought, if we demonstrated that our stuffies are not separate or different from God’s love for us.

And so a couple of weeks ago, blankets and stuffies and emotional support water bottles and cups of coffee and all kinds of things made it into our Sunday worship space to receive a blessing, which I will share here.

Blessing Our Comfort Items

God created the world and called it good, called us good, and we are blessed to be able to enjoy the good things in it.

And when we need a little help along the way, God also did not leave us alone. We have been given people and places to love, animals who journey with us, and things to hold when we need a little courage.

We give thanks for these good gifts, especially our beloved objects that carry our stories, hold our deepest feelings, and know our secrets. We give thanks for our precious possessions that have been with us through good times and hard times, and which remind us of a God who knows us in those same ways. We give thanks that they are not separate from our story of faith, but help us to know we follow a God who loves us. We give thanks for a God who is not distant but gives us something to hold when we are worried about the monster under our bed.

We lift up today our stuffed animals worn soft with hugging,

Blankets that have comforted us at more than just bedtime,

Hoodies that have helped us face difficult days with a little more courage,

Water bottles that travel with us everywhere, faithfully hydrating us along the way,

Jewelry that reminds us of a loved one who was and is always in our corner,

The playlist that helps us to sing and/or dance when we don’t know what else to do,

The story into whose pages we know we can safely disappear,

The precious handwritten note with words that we revisit when we need them most,

Food that takes us back to a time and place when we felt safe.

We lift up the caffeinated beverages, the childhood keepsakes, the pet toy brought today on behalf of a good and faithful animal.

We could not possibly name all the items that are in this room and in our minds, reminding us that we are not alone, but we are grateful for all of these gifts.

And we bless these beloved objects knowing you are a God who works through ordinary things like water and bread and wine, through fire and wind, through singing and silence, through the weight of something familiar in our hands when the world feels frightening.

May each of us, when we reach for these things, remember that the comfort they carry is the gift of a good God who says, “Do not fear, for I am with you.”

May we be brave. And may we be grateful for every blessed thing that carries us along the way. Amen.

Blessing our comfort items was an idea that came from the children’s ministry but it was’t just for children. Just like other forms of inclusion, including children in our worship does not only help children, it helps everyone. Even folks who didn’t bring something could hold an item or a pet in their minds and give God thanks for that good gift. (We do also do an animal blessing in October for St. Francis Day, so we did not encourage the bringing of pets to this event, but a collar or a toy would have been appropriate, and we can’t bless our pets too much, really.)

At this point, I have made it my goal to try to bring one thing from the children’s ministry into worship each month. It could be music, or prayer, or an activity. We recently asked the kids what they thought we should do more often in worship, and there was a suggestion that we try crafts in that space more often. I am pondering how to make that work.

An opportunity like this doesn’t happen without the conversations that we had with the children about how they are feeling. That has been my main takeaway from the cohort so far: we need to make space to truly listen to our children and how they are doing so that we can take them seriously in our worship spaces.

Was that day a little bit extra rowdy in the chapel? Indeed, it was. I missed that old carpet a little bit. But, all things considered, I would have to say that it was worth the extra chaos to get to validate the fears and the comfort of the smallest among us (and everyone else) as part of what matters to God.

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But don’t worry, we do have some great fun planned besides learning how to be a human. We are looking forward to our long summer days together and have managed some fun lunches and even Top Golf after exams this week. I did take Monday off to go to the zoo and get my steps in and I did finally get a chance to feed the giraffes, which I had wanted to do two summers ago.

Meredith Miller talks in her work about the idea of “family warmth.” Basically, kids are much more likely to want to take on the faith of their families if they feel affirmed and supported and connected. My husband and I weren’t thinking of that in particular when we created our Summer List of Fun but it resonates deeply that enjoying being together is a great first step when it comes to sharing your values.

Inspired by one of Meredith’s recent posts, I created a Bingo card for the families at my church to approximate what we do with our Summer List of Fun. I am happy to share it with you although I admit that I didn’t edit it to make it less tailored to my church, but you are still welcome to use it.

It is nice to have a reason to go and eat ice cream, and to notice fireflies, and to look for a new playground. I am sharing it here in case you might find it useful. If you aren’t in the area, I can’t give you a prize, but maybe you can determine a prize that works for your family (I am giving out hacky sacks and ring pops).

If you do use the Bingo card, please let me know! But most importantly, I hope you have fun together this summer.

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Well. Ok. I spent a lot of this month trying to pick a book for the book club that I run for church! As you can see, it did not go so well. Let’s get into it.

Jesus: A Pilgrimage by James Martin: I read this and we picked it as our church summer read. I have read several books by Father Martin and we do have some theological differences, I mean he is a Jesuit priest and I am an ordained woman minister, but I find his work to be meaningful and this book was spiritually helpful to me as I was reading it.

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri (a reread): What a story! This was our church book club selection for May and I think it is such a beautiful and timely story about an immigrant child from Iran. I loved our discussion about it and I am glad I got a chance to reread it.

Make Believe by Mac Barnett: I already said what I needed to say about this book here. I do want to say that we are big Mac Barnett fans and when we have been able to interact with him, he has been so incredibly kind to Atticus, even as Atticus has aged out of Mac’s target audience. I cannot ever repay him for what he has given to my kid over the years.

Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan: I read this to consider it for church book club and it’s a good story! But I like for church book club to mean something and I didn’t feel like this would really mean anything so I decided to pass on it. It’s a good story though!

Frozen River by Ariel Lawson: This one is like 50/50 did I read it for myself or did I read it for church book club. It finally came in after I’d been on hold for it for a while. I liked it a lot but it didn’t strike me as a perfect church book club book. To be honest, I try to avoid sexual assault as a plot line for church book club. This story had very good reasons to have that as a plot (based on actual events) but it did not feel right to me to pick it.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce: I read this to see if it would work for book club and it was a no for me. I have a lot of friends who liked it but I did not.

Magdalene by Marie Howe: I enjoyed this book of poetry!

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones: This is a good story about two girls around the same age who have the same father and different mothers and do not know about each other. I read it to consider it for church book club, and I did like the book a lot but there is not a lot of resolution to the story so it left me a little unsatisfied. I decided not to pick it for church book club.

These Heathens by Mia McKenzie: Well, I liked this book a lot! I did read it to consider it for church book club. It’s about a young Black woman in 1961 from a small town who travels to Atlanta to obtain an illegal abortion. Along the way she meets a lot of people she would have thought of as heathens but she begins to broaden her horizons and see a new kind of life for herself. The protagonist and story were very engaging, but while she was in Atlanta she met: SNCC, the Nation of Islam, the Klan, Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King, and Bayard Rustin and some other LGBTQ Black activists. It kinda felt like Forrest Gump. I liked our protagonist so much! But it didn’t feel right for church book club because I thought they would already know about the people involved. It’s good, though, you should read it.

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai: I liked this book but not enough to pick it for church book club.

Who Is Government by Michael Lewis: I really enjoyed this. It is about some of the individuals who work in government (or did at the time) and the public good that their work does. It’s pretty moving in some places (I did cry once) and also I learned about some very cool jobs. When I was a teenager one of my favorite movies was Dave. If you believe, like Dave, that government can and should help people, you will like this book. It’s a tough time to read it but it helps remember what we are fighting for. I didn’t want it for church book club but I suggested it to one of our Sunday School classes that might like it.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett: The author of The Help is very careful to talk about class and not race in this book, which is also full of plucky women who stand in for the modern-day reader. It’s too long but it will please a lot of book clubs and inform many readers about the unsavory history related to the treatment of “feebleminded women” and the quest (much like today) to promote a certain standard of “virtue.” The book takes a turn in part two that is both zany and extremely serious. Reviews on this are mixed but I found it to strike a good balance between humor and desperation while examining how women find ways to push back against power structures. It did feel a little shaggy while having a mostly neat (if somewhat abrupt) ending but I think overall this will be a hit this summer.

The Christian Past That Wasn’t by Warren Throckmorton: This is an in-depth examination of claims that Christian nationalists make about the founding of America. Throckmorton is generous to call them “myths” while also showing us that men like David Barton and Doug Wilson are lying, and that they know they are lying. (He does call them “storytellers.”) Throckmorton is a retired professor, and takes great care to show his work and cite his sources. The book is a little dry for my taste, but if you are interested in the topic of Christian nationalism and want to be able to argue/discuss claims about America’s establishment, founding fathers, and founding documents, I really do not know of a better or more thorough resource. He takes care to point out at the end that we need to keep a close eye on what is happening in our schools. The goal is to control the narrative by any means necessary, and schools continue to be the testing grounds for this propaganda.

When God is Silent by Barbara Brown Taylor: I read this for the sermon I was working on. Obviously it is great because it’s Barbara Brown Taylor.

The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage: I enjoyed this novel about a wayward princess who finds herself unexpectedly the heir to the throne. It’s probably realistic that the book couldn’t decide whether it hated the riches of royalty or loved them but it did make it hard to stick the landing.

The Women on Platform Two by Laura Anthony: I read this to consider it for church book club but we just did another Irish book with similar themes so it didn’t seem right. This was a great choice for book clubs, though, with themes about feminism and reproductive justice.

Live, Laugh, Love by Kristin Kobes Du Mez: This is the follow up to Jesus and John Wayne except it is focused on white American (evangelical, mostly) Christian women. I just finished it today so I haven’t fully processed- I am going to say more about it later. It talked about a lot of things I lived through and I am not yet sure how to converse about it! Stay tuned.

Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Blair (a reread): I reread this to prepare for a church discussion and it’s just such a great book for talking about women and reproductive freedom.

As you can see, I read a lot of books for church! I still haven’t picked a book for church book club. If you want to leave a suggestion in the comments, I’m happy to have some brainstorming.

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Additionally, children have an important voice and perspective in our faith conversations. We must resist the urge to see children as simply vessels into which we pour our values, and instead see them as conversation partners from whom we can learn. Children can offer a fresh perspective on scripture and tradition as well as a view of the world that is different from adults but equally as valid. Rather than holding them at a distance, we should view them as important and meaningful conversation partners and participants in our communities.

We must take children seriously as people with opinions and experiences that matter. I find that to be the most important part of my job: to take children seriously, to recruit volunteers that take children seriously, and to plan activities that take children seriously.

This week, like many many people who care about children and children’s literature, I read Mac Barnett’s book Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children. We are big Mac Barnett fans in our house. When I worked as a librarian, the kids all knew that his book Sam and Dave Dig a Hole is my favorite read-aloud of all time. Barnett’s daily book club sustained my family during the pandemic. His books are funny and subversive and I enjoy sharing them with kids. At the same time, I don’t use his books all that much in church spaces. It has been clear to me that he doesn’t particularly like the idea of using books the way that I like to use them in church. His emphasis is on books as art, and books as entertainment.

In the picture book proclamation that Barnett and others created several years ago, they said a lot of things that I agree with: Children’s books merit grown-up conversation. The tidy ending is often dishonest. Every day we make new children—let us make new children’s books. At the same time, there is one line that has always irked me a bit and that is: The line between moral and meaning is paramount. For one thing, I am not totally sure that I know what it is intended to mean. And for another thing, I do believe that sharing values via books is important and valid.

Do I like celebrity picture books? No, I do not. I am allergic to many rhyming books because the language feels forced. I am not a fan of any books, especially religious books, that are simply used to tell kids how to act.

At the same time, I appreciate how some SEL books are able to be used in schools - by teachers, librarians, and counselors - to help kids understand their feelings, their friends, and their social landscape. There are books that are didactic that are more subtle than others, and many of them are useful for conveying our values. I love a picture book biography that opens up the world and does teach children about people and experiences beyond what they know. Children already think deeply about justice, experience injustice, and have important questions about the world. Books are an excellent resource for these conversations.

I agreed with what I read in Make Believe about taking children seriously, taking children’s literature seriously, and keeping children (and not adults) at the center of children’s publishing. I have, many times, read a book for kids and thought, I love this but it is too long for the kids I think might like it, or I love this but what kid would enjoy it? I think many adults do get into a trap of thinking about what kids ought to read rather than making/finding/enjoying the best books that kids want to read.

Our parallel situation in the church is that we need to make sure that church is a place where kids feel welcome as their whole (messy) (noisy) (anxious) (neurodivergent) selves rather than expecting them to be just like those of us who have done our best to squash the noise and the mess and the anxiety out of public view. This year, I am part of a group of churches that is working to consider how best to welcome and celebrate children in corporate worship spaces, and I am excited to think about the ways that this allows children to be not only present in worship but leaders in our worship spaces and services.

Where I felt that Mac Barnett and I might diverge, based on Make Believe, is that I felt that he primarily sees books as a place of wonder and of play. And I love that, too. When I worked at the Episcopal school, one of my favorite days of the year was when I would read Press Here to the PreK students and they would ask, “Is this book magic?” Reading The Book With No Pictures to a kid for the first time is an unparalleled experience. During COVID read-alouds, I had parents message me that they had the best time listening to their kids scream at me (and the book) when I read Sam and Dave Dig a Hole to them. I treasure all of those memories.

I also treasure the many times I have read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers to groups, listening to them gasp at the adventure while learning part of our history. I love reading Miracle Man to kids and talking about the little girl who shared her food with Jesus. I will never forget the times I read Giant Squid to kids and they were in awe of this amazing and mysterious creature. Or the time I read The Youngest Marcher and a young girl asked, “Why didn’t the cops help them?”

I love to be silly with kids, and to use books to do that. I do also read picture books to kids because I want to share my values with them. Some of those values are kindness and generosity (the fruit of the spirit). I want them to wonder about the world. I want us to laugh together. I want them to know that our community believes in a creative God, and follows a God who told stories (some without tidy endings). I want them to be holy troublemakers.

I do not read books to kids because I am trying to Make Them Believe. (Sometimes I don’t even know what I believe!) I don’t want to indoctrinate our children (and, knowing our children, that would be a difficult task - they are bright and challenging and not easily convinced). I want the children in our care to know they can Make Their Own Belief in the world, and I hope I am offering them a view of the world that welcomes them as they are, takes seriously their questions and concerns, and sees their formation as an important work of the church, not simply a messy craft and a break for the parents.

I Believe we can take children seriously and empower them as moral thinkers while also offering them our values, and I believe we can do that without being boringly didactic. That is what I try to do when I spend time with kids: to listen to them, to validate their questions and experiences, and to offer them ideas about how they can make their way through the world. To me, books are one of the safest ways to learn. I read stories to children to welcome them into a community that believes in their power and agency to change the world. I also read stories to children so I can hear what they notice, think, and understand that I might have missed.

I left Make Believe feeling slightly unsatisfied, and after a couple of days I think I can articulate why. Barnett feels strongly about not indoctrinating children, which I understand and agree with, but he misses, for me, that joy of connecting with kids about not only play but about our deepest selves. I could not make sense of the world without these children and their questions, and I certainly could not make my own belief without their input. They are, quite simply, the great joy of my life. Taking them seriously is foundational work. Far be it from me to (even try to) Make Them Believe anything.

As I am not a children’s writer and I do not work as a librarian anymore, I am not attempting to wade into the larger discussion about Barnett’s comments about crud. Writing a picture book seems incredibly difficult, a high wire balancing act that I know I personally could never attempt. There are certainly some children’s books I don’t think are very good (see: most celebrity picture books), but I encounter many lovely and wonderful books and those are the ones I would rather focus on. I wish that he would have done that, too, and I think that we should listen to his colleagues who are wounded by his remarks. I found this substack post by Afoma Umesi to be a fair and accurate reading of the situation.

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God, Improv, and the Art of Living by MaryAnn McKibben Dana - I have followed MaryAnn McKibben Dana for a long time, since reading her first book, and I hadn’t read this before but I have seen a lot of her writing about improv and faith. I read the book because I was working on a sermon that tied those ideas together. She is a wonderfully smart and thoughtful and funny writer. I would like to get my hands on her new book, Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life that came out last month. Recommended for people who are intrigued by the idea of considering faith through a lens of improv comedy.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige - I tell you what, I love a book with a tough lady game warden. I agree it started a little slow but I didn’t mind. It had more of a (mild) thriller aspect than I had thought, but wasn’t too scary. Mostly a character study with a bit of a mystery. Loved it.

To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage - After being glued to the Artemis astronauts I needed something to read, and this unexpectedly hit the spot! It follows a Cherokee girl named Steph through her teenage years and into her adulthood as she strives to understand where she comes from and who she is going to be in the world. Also, I kept telling everyone it was my lesbian Cherokee astronaut book. A great read!

Love Like a Mother by Elizabeth Berget - Comes out tomorrow! The book explores theological ideas about a mother’s love and how we can see God in mothering. As a mom who had fairly uncomplicated fertility, birthing, and nursing stories, I thought much of this resonated. I think it will resonate with a lot of people, but there are some people who will feel understandably left out of this particular portrayal of motherhood. The first third of this book is focused on the physical aspects of birthing. These images, along with images of a nursing God, have been very important to my faith as a mom. However, I would not hand this book to a foster mom or an adoptive mom. There is somewhat of a mention of infertility in the book, and there are references throughout to fostering and adoption through foster care, but no real engagement with other adoption discussions. I also wish the author had the confidence to offer Mother God as a metaphor without having to qualify it as much as she did in the beginning of the book. The author mentions that her oldest was about 13 at the time of writing the book. My kid is slightly older, and I think my role as a mother has shifted in huge ways in two or three teenage years. There is a lot of mothering that was unexplored in this book, like aunts, church moms, older kids, and parenting adults, but it would be a good Mother’s Day gift for moms of little kids who are in the trenches (and also give them the gift of time to read it).

Birth Vibes by Jen Hamilton - Also comes out tomorrow! You might know Jen from tik tok. Those of us in this part of NC know her as a local - she works as a labor and delivery nurse in the hospital where I gave birth (though I have never met her). I am sure she could write a book about any number of very funny things, but we are lucky she has written a book with everything you need to know about giving birth. She writes with compassion, humor, and sincerity about things I wish I’d known and explains things I (still) did not know to ask. Her goal is to empower you with information so you can understand what is happening and make informed choices even if/when things don’t go according to plan. Basically every review says “everyone giving birth needs this book” and that is because everyone giving birth needs this book. I haven’t read anything like it. I am certainly not having another baby but I couldn’t put it down. It is really really funny and also full of information. Get it for all the pregnant folks in your life!

I am in a little bit of a reading crisis because I have not yet picked the next book for church book club. Has your book club read anything recently that you recommend? I have been working on the summer read for church, and I think we nailed that one down. It’s been a little hard to balance reading for pleasure and reading for work. I was grateful for the two novels I read this month and how much they helped!

I am hoping to read The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley before I need to return it to the library, and I have a list of possible book club contenders that I need to examine more deeply. I’m also excited to buy Mac Barnett’s new book when it comes out tomorrow!

What have you been reading this month?

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A former theater building downtown, called The Pyrle, recently reopened as a music venue, and I went on the first night that it opened. I went with a friend, because I have been trying to be less lonely this year, and because I want this venue to succeed, and because the tickets that night were free, and because I was interested in the artist, Demeanor, who fuses hip-hop and American roots music (he learned banjo from his aunt Rhiannon Giddens, perhaps you heard her work on Cowboy Carter or when she was in the Carolina Chocolate Drops).

Demeanor is from Greensboro, and so it was a hometown show, and the energy was high even though the sound was a little rough (nobody’s fault - it was the first night, and we were the guinea pigs. I have attended another event since, and the sound was much better). He had great stage presence and rapport with the audience throughout, and I liked the music. In talking about being grateful that the venue had opened, and that he was able to play there, he opened his arms wide and said (something like), “No matter what happens, we will always have this.” Being in the space was lovely, because I am happy that it has a new life, but it was bittersweet, too, thinking of all the times I had been there before under different circumstances. Demeanor’s comment helped me reframe how I was feeling, and to turn to a place of gratitude for the gifts of friendship, and live music, and free tickets.

I am often happy to tag along to a concert for an artist I don’t know, because of the power of being in a darkened space and letting the music fill your body. The magic of discovering something you haven’t heard before. The immediacy of, as Demeanor said, this thing happening in front of and around you that will never happen again in just the same way. The beauty of being present and paying attention.

We recently lost a longtime member of our congregation, and it is traditional at our funerals to offer a prayer for something related to their lives. At these services, we’ve had prayers for engineers, and chemists, and readers. I had the opportunity last week to offer a prayer for concertgoers, because this woman and her wife loved going to concerts. I have adapted that prayer into a blessing below that I wanted to share.

A Blessing for Concertgoers

Blessed are the ones who show up. Blessed are the ones who outlast the Ticketmaster queues to score seats months in advance, who drive the long miles, who buy the merch, who brave the crowd and wait. Who know, from long experience, that something is about to happen that cannot happen any other way, and that should not be missed.

Frederick Buechner described the moment before a performance begins, when the house lights dim and the audience hushes, as a rare instance when the world holds its breath. You can almost see the collective leaning-forward. You can feel a room full of strangers becoming, without consciously deciding to, something more. Buechner recognized it as a moment of grace.

The Celts called the places where the sacred draws close thin places. Where the veil between the human and the holy collapses to almost nothing. We tend to think of thin places as ancient and quiet: a hillside, a shoreline, a cathedral at dawn. We want to listen for God in birdsong, or wind in the trees, or the burbling of a brook. But anyone who has stood in a tiny club or a darkened arena and felt the first guitar note move through them knows that a live show too can be holy ground where God is speaking.

Maren Morris sang about finding her church not in a building but in a playlist, finding the sacred in the moments when music breaks us open, names what we can’t say, and reminds us that we are not alone in what we feel. That is the gift and the blessing of live music. That a song that speaks directly to us suddenly also belongs to thousands of people at once, and it becomes, somehow, more personal, not less. The polish of the album gives way to the visceral connection of performance, in all its humanity and connection, improvisation and imperfection. Community and music offering healing, hope, and the reminder that we are part of something greater.

Blessed are those who know this experience, who show up for it, again and again. Blessed are those who are present in those crowds and let the music do its work.

So today we bless the concertgoers. We give thanks for their wisdom, reminding us to look for our creative God in creative spaces. We give thanks for the concert selfies and faded t-shirts, marking the memories. We give thanks for concert buddies, knowing that we will always think of them in the spaces we experience music together. We pray that music will continue to meet us all. That when the lights go down and the excitement builds, we will remember we are held and loved by God.

Blessed are the lives that are filled with these good gifts, that we will always have with us. Amen.

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I had three books that took me quite a bit of time this month, but as you can see, almost everything I read was stellar!

Enter, Ghost by Isabella Hammad took a while to get going for me but this story of a Palestinian production of Hamlet in the West Bank did capture my attention and the ending makes the whole thing worth it.

I read The Lion Women of Tehran to consider it for my book club, and it was fine. Standard book club fare where you find yourself learning about the history of Iran and what it is and was like for the women there. It would be a decent book club book but I decided that if we were going to read about Iran I’d go with Everything Sad is Untrue, which I read a few years ago and was a five star book for me.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi was our book club book for this month, so I reread it and found it to be just as good the second time. We had a great discussion about addiction, faith, science, immigration, family . . . and the writing is so beautiful. It feels like not a word is out of place.

The Barn by Wright Thompson will be one of my top reads of the year, although it did take me quite a long time to read it. The author examines the deep history that led to the murder of Emmett Till and also pieced together what has happened since. I learned so much and I admired how the author leveraged his own family history and access in the area to uncover information and to weave the narrative in a way that felt incredibly powerful. I also liked how he acknowledged that this is not the definitive Emmett Till book but that he hoped he was passing the baton on to the next author/investigator who might be able to uncover more.

Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith was a great book about siblings reconnecting. A quick read (which I needed after The Barn) with heart and characters I cared about a lot.

Isola by Allegra Goodman was a slower read but fascinating to learn about this true story of a woman who survived after being abandoned on an island by her guardian. She had to shoot polar bears! It would have been five stars but it had a slow start.

Currently reading:

God, Improv, and the Art of Living by MaryAnn McKibben Dana - I tell you what, I will never understand why some books and authors are more popular than others. This is a fun and helpful look at faith through the lens of improv. I have followed her for a while and also enjoyed her book Sabbath in the Suburbs. MaryAnn McKibben Dana deserves some of the attention and accolades that others have gotten - her writing and theology are thoughtful and provocative and original. (She also apparently has a book coming out in a couple of weeks which I did not realize until I saw it just now.)

I’m listening to These Heathens by Mia McKenzie and it’s got my attention so far!

Three that are ready to be picked up at the library:

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai- I want to read this but I just realized it’s over 600 pages.

To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage - From what I understand this book is about a lesbian Cherokee astronaut like what that sounds amazing! But I also hear that it is slow. I want to give it a try though.

Heartwood by Amity Gage - This is the THIRD time I have put this one on hold. It sounds good and then I haven’t had time for it. Is it good?

Honestly, I’d recommend everything I read this month. The Lion Women of Tehran wasn’t stellar but it would be good for a book club that wanted to use it to learn more about Iran, and that has its place! Everything else was quite good. What did you read this month that you would recommend?

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I only read five this month although I made progress on Mother, Creature, Kin by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudderand I am on track to finish Enter, Ghost by Isabella Hammad today.

Dominion by Addie Citchen - this book starts off and you think, oh, I understand this environment and then it rips off the facade and you realize there are a lot of other things going on. This one is set in a church but because of the cover I had thought it was going to be in the past. It’s modern-day. A great read.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy - I probably went into this one with expectations that were too high. I thought it was going to be more of a family saga when it ended up being more of a suspense read with more science than I had expected. I have had some interesting conversations about whether the ending was hopeful or hopeless. I tended to think it was kind of hopeless.

The Justice of Jesus by Joash P. Thomas - I read this to see if it would be a good fit for our church summer read, and the answer is no. I am a little bit baffled by books like this. I am sure this guy is very nice, but in 2017 he was still working for a Republican and writing speeches opposing immigration. Trump had already been elected at that point. That also means he had lived through the shootings of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and the Mother Emanuel Nine and still felt comfortable with the rhetoric. I welcome people who change their minds but I am not always sure they are the people who should be writing books. I could see this being helpful to people who are newer to these ideas than he is but it would not be a good fit for my church.

Counterweights by Shannan Martin - Counterweights is a concept that Shannan is using to help people understand that when we are experiencing difficult things, we also have the opportunity to pay attention to the joyful and hopeful things that hopefully balance them out. This book is about the practice of finding those counterweights. They can be as serious and deep as nature and friendship and as ephemeral as Taylor Swift songs (I say that as someone who likes Taylor Swift). It is about not giving the bleakness the last word. Shannan appears to live a genuinely thoughtful life where she and her family prioritize community and looking out for others. I admire that work very much. I thought her “counterweight” idea worked better in some chapters than others, and I wondered a few times if I was missing on some context that might help me feel more invested in a particular story.

The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett - This is about PJ, a goodhearted drunk who ends up being the caregiver for his brother’s grandkids and the ill-advised road trip they take with his daughter (and a cat named Pancakes) for reasons that honestly I don’t have time to explain to you. It’s funny and sad. I really liked it! I liked all of the characters individually and the ways they came to know and really see one another. There were a few too many names to keep up with, but that’s a mild complaint. A thing that happens at the beginning is that PJ steals his ex-wife’s fiance’s car (it’s more like borrowing but you can tell it’s gonna be a bad idea - not really a spoiler, it’s a bad idea) and I find plot points like that so stressful! I also kinda struggle with books where everything goes wrong. Not everything goes wrong but it’s kind of a freewheeling mess of an adventure. However, this book does have strong Little Miss Sunshine vibes that kept me reading, and it has a big heart and it’s very funny. So if you can handle some bad/stressful decision making that you know is gonna end badly but is also going to be okay, I would say give this a read.

Here are some that I have checked out from the library, please weigh in on them:

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams - The reviews make this sound a little slow, which sounds nice for Lent, but also I’ve had a bunch of slower ones so I might return this one unread.

The Barn by Wright Thompson - This one I will definitely read. I was on hold for it foreverrrrrrr.

Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith - I don’t remember why I checked this out but I do hope to read it. Any opinions on it?

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The years at the Episcopal school were difficult, because the leadership was constantly changing and capricious. The kids and families had my whole heart and I am proud of the work I did there. I am grateful for those years because it allowed me to see that what I wanted to do with my life combined kids and faith.

Over the five years that I worked there I preached and served communion, I incorporated the church calendar into some of our library lessons, and I administered ashes to the kids (and some adults) several times. It is its own special beautiful heartbreaking thing, to remind a tiny brown-eyed kindergartener that she will return to dust one day. One year I applied them to my own kindergartener. Looking in a kid’s eyes and telling them to remember their own death, or that they will return to dust, will really make you consider how you want to talk about what you are doing.

It was actually the middle school students who would make my heart catch in my throat. Administering ashes is more physical than many other church and school activities. On a regular week, I wouldn’t touch an 8th grader, but I would get regular hugs from the little ones. I didn’t (and still don’t) touch a lot of foreheads regularly. Middle school foreheads feel, to me, particularly vulnerable. There’s acne and the boys have floppy bangs and they are embarrassed their hair is in the way. Some (most) of them are taller than me and they have to stoop a little. There’s something about touching these kids in a particularly vulnerable place and talking to them about whose they are that I always found very powerful.

The first Ash Wednesday that I was not at the Episcopal school, we were in COVID years, and I had my first opportunity to administer ashes to my own faith community. These were the days before we were gathering again, and so we went with a form of ashes-to-go in our parking lot. I had read about ashes-to-go as a public witness in Sara Miles’s book City of God, and also knew about it from seeing my friend Father Gawain administer ashes-to-go in White Plains, NY. A couple of years ago, Gawain said, “The practice of Ashes-to-Go, in spite of its superficiality, establishes a type public presence that can be powerful for those wary of churches but still have a sense of the transcendent. I often have moving conversations.”

During COVID, my congregation practiced ashes-to-go out of necessity, but we have kept up the practice because our community seems to appreciate it. Our service isn’t until the evening, and some people would like the witness of sporting their ashes all day long. Some simply can’t make it to the service and appreciate the flexibility. Additionally, our church is next to a university, and we rent parking spaces to students, who often see us in the parking lot and express appreciation that they are able to get ashes.

Yesterday I had the early shift, at 7:00am, and I touched the faces of friends and strangers. I answered questions about what I was doing from people who were coming to the building to attend recovery meetings. A pregnant woman I do not know parked in our lot, came to get ashes, and then left. I blessed each person with love and the stuff of stars. The idea of taking ashes fully to the streets appeals to me, meeting people where they are. But I enjoy making the parking lot a place of welcome where holy things can happen, too.

Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the Christian calendar, because it is one of the most human. As Brandi Carlile says, “When you look in the eyes of the strangers you meet, be human.” We stand so close, breathing the same air. Some folks look me in the eye, while others take in the moment in more solitary ways. It is vulnerable to be touched, and to let someone speak words of blessing upon you. It is messy to have ashes on your face and dusting across your nose. There is no choice but to accept that we are being human together, trying to figure out how best to live the days that we have been given.

I find it helpful to think of Lent, not as a time of bleakness, but as a time of growth and healing and repair before we emerge with the joy of Easter. And I like that we begin Lent with a day where our humanity is on display, smudged with dust.

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I read eight books in January! I read more on my kindle than I had in a while and that was nice. Here are my thoughts on them.

Too Soon by Betty Shamieh - I loved this book about a Palestinian-American who traveled to the West Bank to put on a gender-bent production of Hamlet. The story is entwined with her mother and grandmother’s experiences of having to leave their home in 1948. I found this to be a powerful story of women that included love, motherhood, ambition, and finding a home in the world. Reviews online were mixed but it worked for me. I cared about all the characters and found it to be a quick and satisfying read.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall - I did not rate this book because it was Not For Me and I did not like it at all. I did finish it! But I did not like it. Maybe you will!

One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin - I did some of this on audio last summer because I was considering it for church book club, and then I finished it in paper form in January. Older person/quirky younger person is not my favorite kind of story, plus this is Sick Lit. Not my thing and a little sad/cloying but I did want to finish it.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan - I thought I would like this more than I did. I liked several of the characters just fine but the story was frustrating and unsatisfying to me. Maybe you liked it! I didn’t really and I only finished it out of stubbornness.

Poets Square by Courtney Gustafson - I did not expect this memoir about feral cats to be as powerful as it is. In this book, Courtney shares about her work rescuing feral cats, but she also manages to talk about misogyny, body dysmorphia, learning to accept love, learning how to genuinely help instead of just feeling like you are helping, and learning to build community. Also, there are great stories about cats. I loved it.

Tilt by Emma Pattee - This is a case where a 3 rating is not a bad rating, I thought this was pretty good. It’s about a pregnant woman who lives in Portland who is in IKEA when “the big one” earthquake hits and she has to figure out how to walk home. It’s interspersed with some of her family history and her history of her relationship with her partner. It was a compelling read but I also didn’t think that it did anything interesting.

Nightfaring by Megan Eaves-Egenes - Megan is a friend of mine, and I was so excited to read this! She immersed herself in the topic of darkness and light pollution and traveled the globe to consider darkness within different cultures, seeking out “dark sky” areas where the sky is more visible. I share Megan’s concerns that in the Christian scriptures and in our culture, light is praised and darkness is vilified. Instead, we need a balance. I reflected throughout the book on ways that the dark is restful, healing, and makes things visible in a new way. Out now in the UK and in March in the US.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood - This was an easy read although a little bit slow about a woman who leaves her life to live at a convent and there are a lot of mice and also the bones of a former nun. It had some really beautiful lines but it didn’t stand out to me as worth recommending. And when I say a lot of mice, I mean a LOT of mice. Yuck.

I’m happy with my five-star reads but everything else was mostly just fine. Have you read these? I like to hear what people read! Did you read anything good in January?

Currently reading:

Dominion by Addie Citchen (this is not what I thought it was going to be but I will probably finish it)

Mother, Creature, Kin by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder (I have been reading this one on my Kindle FOREVER but I am determined to finish it)

Here are some that I hope to get to soon:

Enter, Ghost by Isabella Hammad (another book about bringing Hamlet to the West Bank, how is that possible?)

Counterweights by Shannan Martin (I’ve never read any of her books but I got this one from Netgalley)

As I have gotten older, I have been faced with situations that challenged the ways I was taught to see the world as a child. As a teenager, I saw faithful and loving gay and lesbian Christians, something I had been told was not possible. Through study and their living testimony, I changed my mind about what the Bible says about LGBTQ inclusion. Through my own experience, through science, and through a different understanding of the Bible, I came to change my mind about abortion. I obviously changed my mind about the ordination of women. I learned that a lot of the things that I’d been taught about the Bible did not line up with the ways that it was written, affecting not only my daily life but also things like American domestic and foreign policy. I had to learn a new way of being in the world, one that I did not plan for, one that I was not sure I even wanted.

Through all of these changes, my view of God also changed. I began to see God not as a capricious force who was trying to teach me a lesson, but as a loving presence who wants the best for me, grieves with me in my pain, and works with me to make beauty out of broken things. I found a renewed love of God and of the Bible, and space to center them in my life more than ever.

That is not to say that changing my mind was painless. It was destabilizing to learn to read the Bible in a different way. It was painful beyond words to lose our community and our support systems when we left the evangelical church. Even now, years later, I find myself dealing with painful feelings that bubble up from time to time. It hurt to have people think the worst of me. It hurt to feel alone in my convictions. It hurt to see pictures that we ought to have been included in. Mike and I made mistakes as we tried to find new ways of being in the world.

I do not wish to flatten our experience and say that we gained more than we lost, although on balance we probably did. I will say that the community and the support that we gained sustained us through those difficult times of grief and loss and rebuilding, and that is a beautiful gift.

I say all of this to say that I am no stranger to changing my mind. When I applied to divinity school, they asked me to identify my calling, and I said that I believe that my calling is to lifelong learning, a project that ensures that we must be curious and open-minded about the world, ready to take in new information and to let it shape us. A dangerous proposition, as wild and wondrous as God’s own Spirit as she moves through the world.

Maybe you don’t need a lecture from me on changing your mind, because you already did. Perhaps you have family members, people in your life you love very much, who you have lost because you changed your mind, and you do not see a way to bridge that gap. But think about who you were, and compare that to who you are now. If you could learn, and grow, and change, isn’t there a chance that they can, too?

Or perhaps you grew up like I did, and the world makes a certain amount of sense. But things keep happening that make you unsure. You wonder what you might lose if you took a step away from what you were taught. What ground might rumble under your feet if you ask that question that is in the back of your mind?

If the things we are seeing and hearing do not line up with the story we have been believing and living, the courageous thing to do is to try to figure out the truth, no matter the cost. Change is not painless. But refusing to change can also cost us something. It costs us to look at cruelty in the world and to ignore it. It costs us to look away from the suffering of children. It costs us when we elevate lies over the truth, when we eschew accountability, when we elevate some people at the expense of others, when we value power over compassion. I would argue that it harms our very souls.

At the end of Matilda: The Musical (The Movie), there is a song that Matilda and Miss Honey sing called “Holding My Hand.” Throughout the musical, the characters sing about how to change their story and that no one is going to fix things for them. As the movie concludes, they see how they helped one another be brave and create a better world for themselves and for one another.

You kicked down the doors for me
You helped me understand
There was another version of me
You were still holding my hand
You were just there for me (I will be brave)
Quietly taking a stand
Changing the end of my story for me

I have been wrong before, and I will be wrong again. I look back on the person that I was, and I am proud of both her courage and her mistakes. She has, at times, been brave to change her mind to try to do what she thought was right. She makes me feel like I can be brave today, in big and small ways. Only you can change your story, but if you don’t like what you are seeing and you are ready to speak out, I will stand with you. You can change your mind. It’s not too late.

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I live in North Carolina, and my social media has been overtaken with news about ICE and Border Patrol being sent to Charlotte (and now Raleigh). I have friends who work in schools with a lot of absences, and I have friends who have attended trainings on keeping their neighbors safe. I follow elected officials who are communicating everything from food for kids to traffic stops. I have been thinking about the news from earlier this month when Catholic bishops were denied the right to bring the Eucharist to detainees in Chicago for All Saints Day.

I am grateful for the witness of the bishops, who were honoring both the faith of the detained and their humanity in such a public way, and I was moved by the words of Dominican Sister Christin Tomy, who said that she had a lot of grief because she was hoping they would be allowed to distribute communion. When they were not, she said, “I really was just heartbroken—and I think we all were, for the way that the body of Christ was being ripped apart.”

The body of Christ was being ripped apart. When people are denied welcome at the table, the body of Christ, which includes us in this room, is being ripped apart. When people are dehumanized and disparaged, abused and belittled, ignored and disrespected, the body of Christ is being ripped apart. Families are being ripped apart, communities are being ripped apart, trust is being ripped apart.

Jesus, of all people, understood the grief of this. Jesus, falsely called a criminal, betrayed by one of his closest friends, was no stranger to disrespect, rejection, dehumanization. This is who we, as Christians, choose to follow. One who stands with us in the brokenness of witnessing and fighting against the dehumanization of people created in the image of God. One who would remind us that we are not alone.

And so we also, as part of the body of Christ, take communion today. We remember the last meal Jesus had with his friends. His body was about to be broken like this bread, like the brokenness that we feel, and what he wanted to remind his friends is that we are all one human family created by God, and that that is where we find our strength to care for one another, to keep going.

And he poured the cup that night and he asked them to carry that message beyond that room, just as we are strengthened to go beyond this room, to bring the wholeness and welcome, justice and compassion to those we encounter.

Today we remember that every person has a place at this table of radical hospitality. There is One Loaf and One Cup, one Body of Christ which unite all of us. We are committed to a world in which everyone is equally cherished and respected. Let that commitment be renewed as we share this meal together.

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In case you are unfamiliar, to celebrate Epiphany, many Christians write on their doors or lintels with chalk in a pattern such as “20 + C + M + B + 26”. The numbers in this refer to the year (in this case 2026). The letters C, M, and B stand for the traditional names of the Magi which are Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar and for the Latin blessing,“Christus mansionem benedicat,” which means, “May Christ bless this house.”

Sometimes we wear crowns to do our chalking!

Some years were considerably warmer than others!

As you can see, we tend to chalk our porch and sidewalk rather than our door. This is because of our storm door and the setup of our porch and not for any more serious reason. We also chalk the posts of our front porch, and I appreciate how you can see the remnants of several years under each new year. Each Epiphany is a new opportunity to start fresh, to ask God to guide us, and to mark our home as a place of welcome, both to Christ and to the people who interact with us.

In 2020, we were having some work done on the house, and that year we also chalked the dumpster (and the port-a-potty) that were in our driveway.

We do have a considerable amount of guilt about this. Is the dumpster fire of 2020 our fault? It feels like it might be. Sorry, everybody.

The following year, January 6th 2021, I spent most of the day glued to the news, in tears, and unable to process what we were seeing happening at the Capitol. That year, I posted, “God, enlighten us with the brilliance of your Epiphany star. We pray for guidance for all who enter here (and also those who deliver packages). We pray that we do not turn away from what is being revealed on this frightening day. We pray for the courage to resist the kingdoms of this world and those seeking its power.”

Since then, I have prayed similarly each year on Epiphany for courage and discernment for those in our house. It felt more important than ever to speak words of blessing and to ask for God’s guidance. Yesterday, though, I did not feel very brave or discerning. I felt afraid and sad. The news has been very difficult. The people who committed those atrocities five years ago have been pardoned and the story has been rewritten. It got dark early and we are all January cranky and I had barely slept the night before. I did not know for sure where the chalk was. I didn’t ask everyone to chalk with me.

But I felt better this morning. Not hopeful, but more human. I was pretty sure I did know where the chalk was, and the sun was out, and I love a ritual. So before I left the house, I marked up the sidewalk, and the porch, and the post. I prayed for us to remember the light of Epiphany even when things feel bleak.

As you can see from the pictures, this practice has been both playful and meaningful over the years. I believe that making space to bless the year matters, and that speaking and acting in ways of blessing matter, even when hope is not front and center. It is a small way to remind ourselves of God’s presence in our lives. I felt better today having done it, even a little bit late.

What I am noticing in the story this year that I would like to bless and carry into the year is that these Wise Men (and maybe some Wise Women) didn’t stop learning. When they saw a new star, they were curious and allowed it to shape their journey. When they learned about Jesus, they came to be changed by him. When they were warned in a dream about Herod, they traveled a different way. May we in this house, in 2026, be people who allow God to change and shape us along the way.

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Yesterday the absolutely terrible Politico story about the Young Republican group chats. What you see there is vulgar, offensive, and, frightening. I have read and listened to a few discussions of the article, and none of the men talking about the article seemed to be as disturbed as I was by the idea that systematic rape was called “epic.” To be clear, some of these people are in their 30s and some of them were working at the time in government. This is not the future of the Republican Party. It is the present. And it is also about keeping power by any means necessary.

I am the mom of a teenage boy, and so of course I am worried about the darkest corners of our internet (that was a five star book from me) but I am also worried about the ways that the Christianity I want to share with him is not about accruing power. It is not particularly meme-worthy, and it isn’t going to own anybody. If those are our standards, and if we don’t believe that condemning or shaming people into compliance is a way into a life of faith, then how do we keep young men engaged in the Way of Jesus?

I may have noticed all of these different pieces floating around the internet because I have been reading the book Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood by Angela Denker. She combines personal narrative, interviews, and research to unpack some ideas about Christianity, masculinity, and power in ways that I found helpful. She lays out the problems of the radicalization of right-wing Christian men in America, exploring areas such as school, traditional gender roles, and violence.

“Militant masculinity forces men to abandon softer emotions like compassion, empathy, or sadness—and it encourages them to buy guns, get bigger muscles, and abuse and diminish women. This is an unequivocal problem for humanity, as well as for American politics.”

“But how can churches help young, white Christian boys and men find compassionate masculinity, when so often American Christianity has instead championed a violent, angry, hierarchical masculine God?”

“It’s inescapable that young, white Christian men and boys are both often the problem in modern-day America, and they are also in trouble and in need of care and support in ways that don’t ignore the truths about the dangers posed by traditional masculinity, which is too often conservatives’ only solution to the problems facing men and boys.”

The most powerful parts of the book are interviews with boys and young men who have found and are finding a way out of the loneliness, rage, and oppression of the Christianity in which they were raised or indoctrinated. The common thread of those experiences is authenticity and care.

Despite the powerful storytelling and even hope offered in the book, it is hard not to feel despair. I am tired of seeing children suffer because of the pursuit of money and power. Additionally, there is so much anger and hate. I, too, am angry. I believe that patriarchy and the pursuit of power harm all of us. I believe that what we have to offer in the life and teaching of Jesus is an off-ramp from this destructive culture, a way for our souls to be whole and free of shame. I believe loving community where we can show up as our full selves and be supported can help create the world I’d like to live in, the one that Jesus spoke so often about. I believe Jesus when he says that following him is easy and his burden is light, because it is the way out of the pursuit of power and into a life of wholeness.

And I confess that I am not sure how we can make that case to our culture, especially our political culture. But I am glad that we are talking about it in all of these places, and I am going to keep paying attention.

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Today my social media has been full of ex-evangelicals expressing relief and joy at having outlived James Dobson. In his "ministry," he advocated for corporal punishment for children (and dogs), and taught parents that children who expressed emotion were actually being manipulative and that they needed to have their will broken (mostly by corporal punishment). This is his legacy, one of cruelty, where people (both parents and children) were taught not to trust their own feelings and instincts and were instead called sinners who needed to be corrected.

His life's work reveals a fear about a loss of control. If you beat your children when they disobey you and then beat them more when they cry, you will, in many cases, be able to control aspects of their behavior. Not because they love you. Not because they trust you. Because they are afraid of you. This is not parenting. This is forcing children into submission.

Dobson did this because he believed in a God who would send you to hell if you did anything disobedient. He believed that parents should teach children about that cruel and capricious God and do anything within their power to control their children's behavior.

This is only part of the harm that he did. He treated LGBTQ people like garbage, he emphasized purity culture, he sought to merge religious and political power. He said that the kids at Sandy Hook died because of God’s judgment on America for gay marriage and abortion. He made the world worse in countless ways. If you are one of the people who was harmed by his teachings, I believe you, and I hope you feel a measure of peace knowing his influence here will continue to wane now that he is gone.

In evangelical teaching, Christian leaders are to be held to account for how they teach and guide their communities. It is a job that ought to be taken with humility, not used to harm or subjugate. What a waste of a platform. What absolute blasphemy to do so much harm in the name of Jesus. The fruit of his life is so deeply rotten that grown people who were harmed by his teaching as children now feel relief that he is gone.

I have seen a lot of posts today that condemned Dr. Dobson to hell, and I do not begrudge anyone those feelings because his teachings created hell here on earth for many many people. That is his legacy. However, I believe in a loving God who never stops pursuing people. I don't believe James Dobson is in hell. I think that he is in the presence of a loving God finally learning about true, loving power and what it looks like.

If I ever think of him again, and I hope not to, I will remember how people celebrated today and I will do my best to choose a different path.

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I started to write a little Facebook post about James Dobson and then I realized I had more to say. My parents had some of Dobson’s books and received his letter monthly. I remember reading it and wondering why he kept insisting America was about to be destroyed, because things didn’t seem so bad. I personally received terrible messages from James Dobson’s Focus on the Family products about my worth as a woman, my role in the world, and the unreliability of my own emotions. He taught that I could not trust myself. I am grateful that my parents did not follow his abusive teachings. If his death has brought up big feelings today, be sure to drink some water, take your meds, and reach out to someone you trust. You are in my prayers.

But that’s not the only way that the Bible is misunderstood. Those are historical concerns but there are also theological concerns that need to be addressed. For me, the unwinding of the historical component came first and then the unwinding of the theology. I had been told that women couldn’t lead, and that God loved me but also that I was disgusting to God because I was born sinful, and that what mattered in our lives was mostly what we needed to do to get into heaven. Those were lies told to me as well (except that God does love me), well-meaning, ill-informed, theologically devastating lies.

When we moved out of evangelical spaces, I learned from the people around me to look more at the context and time period in which the different parts of the Bible were written, and the genre of the particular text. I learned that there were different kinds of theology that came from different viewpoints, and the one that I had lived under (white male patriarchy) did not begin to tell the entire story of God’s presence with God’s people. I read liberal and liberation and feminist theologians and fell back in love with the Bible, and only then was I lucky enough to find a way to go to divinity school. (I was happy about that because I did occasionally see a classmate look like they needed to lie down on the floor when something was said, but I had done all of that in the privacy of my own home.)

Yesterday I finished Better Ways to Read the Bible. A book like this would have been helpful when I was doing all that unpacking 20 years ago (how is that possibly the correct number???). In it, Zach Lambert talks about the harmful lenses through which he was taught to read the Bible, which are similar to many of the ones I mentioned earlier, and then he offers better, healing lenses through which to look at the Bible: looking at the Bible through the lens of Jesus, and through the context in which the scripture was written, and with the idea that God wants us to flourish, and looking for the fruit of the theology.

I read this pastorally, wondering if perhaps one of our Sunday School classes might use it. And I think that could be appropriate in some places. I think that at the church where I work, many of our congregants who are willing to go to Sunday School have already done enough of this work that it would be preaching to the choir, but this is a helpful book for someone who is still mad at the Bible but is open to new interpretation. I couldn’t think of a group at my church that might study it, but I could think of some individuals who would benefit from it.

There are a few places I had some quibbles, although I was reading a pre-release copy, so perhaps some of this changed before its final form. I did not love the note at the beginning that he chose to use masculine language for God because the Biblical authors did (a theological concern and a choice I wouldn’t have made). I was disappointed that in the conversation about John 8 (the woman caught in adultery all by herself) that he didn’t mention that story is not in the earliest manuscripts (a historical concern). And while he does make it clear that you can find a lot of different things in the Bible depending on what you are looking for, near the end, he mentioned that throughout the Bible we see God’s people doing the work of liberation. On one hand, I agree. I believe we should read the Bible as a liberative text. I believe the Bible is a liberative text. I read it and teach and preach it as a liberative text. I also think we have to decide what to do with the stories that are flatly oppressive, like the book of Joshua. Hebrew Bible scholar Anna Sieges said on the podcast The Bible for Normal People, “[T]here’s some really horrifying stuff in the [scriptures - she was specifically talking about the prophets]. Don’t be afraid to wrestle back and be like, ‘Eww, I don’t like that depiction of God.’ And keep moving through until you find one that you like better.” I think it is okay to verbalize those concerns, and to admit that we do at times see God’s people in the text acting as oppressors, believing they are following what God wants. Perhaps that view helps us understand the people who, at best, misled us because they themselves were misled and, at worst, have chosen to read the Bible as an oppressive text so that they can continue to hold on to power.

I refuse to cede the Bible to those people. If you do, too, or you want to but you’re still a little wobbly about how that might work, this book can help. It appears that bookshop.org and my local indie have it backordered, but I still recommend you use those instead of Amazon! There’s a good deal to it from the publishers themselves. Thanks to the publishers for the opportunity to read it and have it as a resource for my congregation.

On Living by Kerry Egan (5 stars) - This book is by a hospital chaplain and it focuses on encouraging people who are living to truly live. I thought it was great and would be great for a Sunday School class or book club.

Migrant God by Isaac Samuel Villegas (5 stars) - One of my goals this year has been to read more about immigration. This gave me a lot of imagery about God and community that I hadn’t considered before. A quick but powerful read.

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham (5 stars) - I am one of the people who watched the Challenger explode live. They say a lot of people didn’t and just think that they did, but I was at school, and we were all watching the first teacher in space. We always watched the shuttles, but this one was going to be special. I don’t remember my teacher saying anything, and think she just turned it off. I went home that day and watched it explode over and over again on tv that night. I had been wanting to read this and better understand what happened. It is tragic how safety was so ignored, even leading to the tragedy with the Columbia. He does a great job keeping the story going while providing lots of detail.

Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond (5 stars) - Evicted is one of those life-changing books for me so I was glad I finally read this one. We could eliminate poverty if we only had the will to do so.

Devil is Fine by John Vercher (5 stars) - This book is weird and sad and dark and funny. I can’t explain it to you and I go back and forth on what I think happened in the end, but I will never forget it.

Have you read any of these? Have you read any of the others that I didn’t rate as highly? July has been so busy that I haven’t read as much, and I have some audiobooks I’m having trouble finding time to finish, but I do hope to finish this month strong and give you a July update sooner than I did for June!

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